No one thinks Da'Rick Rogers is better than Justin Hunter. The only thing Da'Rick could do better was go over the middle for big 3rd down catches. Our new JuCo guy will be able to do that just fine, and we have better and bigger TEs now.

Tennessee hung with a lot of teams until the freshmen had to play in the second half last season--this year the freshmen are no longer freshmen. Expect Tennessee to hang with the SEC East's best.

In Ireland, you have to give ND a huge homefield advantage. The crowd is going to be very loud and very biased against my poor Mids. Not that the Midshipmen aren't used to adversity. I like Navy for every other game they play, or at least give them a fighting chance, and I think we can beat ND too. But again, I think if I weren't being a homer, I'd say Navy pobably won't beat ND this year.

Maybe so but I'd still my money on the US Navy to take care of that "homefield advantadge bias" problem. What do the Irish boast? A few thousand drunken soccer hooligan with molitov cocktails and sticks.

Nobody in Ireland gives a flying fuck about a college founded by French priests in Indiana. The crowd will be a few thousand rich ND alums who made the trip, a few locals with free tickets, and a bunch of folks disguised as empty seats.

If Navy can move/control the ball, they have a shot. The only worry I see is giving a team an entire offseason to prepare for the option instead of one week in the middle of the year. If ND is preared for it and not distracted by the vacation, things will be tougher. Either way I'll take the 15 points though.

Also, they are having joint exercises with the UK so there will be some navy ships anchored in Dublin, and crewman will be at the game. (But, half of those could root for ND as well. The typical navy crewman’s allegiance is not particularly strong for the naval academy.)

I wouldn't be so sure of that. My Irish grandmother loathed Notre Dame because no true Irish-Catholic school would hqave a French name. In addition, Ireland's younger generation has a rather large anti-Catholic group. Ireland leads the world in terms of growth rate for the athiest segement of its population. Those Catholic Church sex scandals had some really nasty fallout over there. My Irish relatives asked me to ship them Navy gear since they love football, but hate Catholicism these days. One of them was posting on Facebook how they ran some Domers out of a pub last night and was quite proud of it.

Basically the Catholic Church was really tightly ingrained in Irish society and that made the sex scandal a million times worse since it was like being betrayed by your best friend. Left some really, really, bitter wounds.

I spent some time in County Cork, and they simply didn't care about ND, college football, or this particular game in general. In fact, Speaking to some coworkers based there, there hasn't been much hoopla about it all (at least in County Cork... rival of Dublin's)

UCD grads--tended to scorn American ideas of Irishness, wanted nothing to do with St. Patrick's day (for example), when Dublin would fill with drunken American cops. I was surprised this thing was happening at all, but money talks. And Ireland and England have a few American football fans.

Meh, Cubit can't coach his way out of a paper bag. I saw his squads up close multiple times a year, and they can't get the big win to turn the program into a consistent MAC contender. They may beat Illinois, but this Illini team is coached by the same guy who would frequently make the Broncos their whipping boys in Toledo.

Beckman's Rockets only played Cubit's Broncos 3 times. The first time he lost by 32 and the last 2 times he won by a combined 16. I hardly seeing that as "making the Broncos their whipping boys."

While I admit I'm not the biggest fan of Cubit and think he sometimes makes idiotic decisions, he took over a sorry excuse for a program and regardless of what you think you saw, he has indeed turned WMU into perennial contenders in the MAC and a team that has shown it can take down, or at least compete with, lower tier BCS conference foes.

Cubit has only managed to get 2nd place in the MAC West twice in his tenure at Western, he's been 3rd or 4th every year and they've had plenty of talent to be far superior than what he has produced. I don't think you can call them perennial contenders when they haven't even been to a MAC championship game. You are however correct about Beckman not owning Western the way I thought they had, it has seemed like Toledo have had the Broncos number, at least while I was there from 06-10.

Yeah, the Broncos have always stuck around 2nd or 3rd in the West, but they've always had the potential and have been in the position to get to the MAC championship game most years of his tenure.

Like I think you were kinda getting at (albeit in a way that degraded Cubit's accomplishments) , is that it's safe to say that Cubit has overperformed from what the expectations of Western used to be, but with the talent he's been able to bring in and develop, he's underperformed in conference play.

That being said, I think Illinois gets the win, but you can't count out the chance of another Bronco upset.

Boise State I'm actually conflicted about. I believe a rivalry is a rivalry because you hate the other guy, and it's impossible to wish them well. So I can't root for Sparty. On the other hand it will reflect poorly on the conference if State loses, so I can't in good faith root for either side. I'll watch it, of course. I'll just be unhappy no matter the outcome. Or happy. Depends on my mood.

Normally, I would agree. But it's not like Boise State=Appalachian State, even without Kellon Moore. We're not going to get the same mileage lording a loss over them. Appalachian State belongs in a seperate, miserable category of its own, that only Virginia Tech and Ole Miss, to my knowledge, can truly appreciate.

Venables is a good DC, but Oklahoma also gave up 41 to Texas Tech, 45 to Baylor, and 44 Ok St. last year. He has also only been coaching since '93, and has had zero NFL experience. Comparing him to Mattison is quite the stretch.

I totally agree that he is nowhere near the caliber of Mattison. But from what I seem to remember hearing he is considered one of the top 15-20 DCs incollege. Clemson has talent on their D, so maybe a new coordinator makes a difference. I live in Clemson, and the only sports talk I can get in my car is a homer station, which really sucks.

It's important for all Big 10 teams to win their non conference games. I never met a student on campus that didn't understand this so I don't know why board members don't get it. Bottom line is that fans of Michigan root for the Big 10. It's good for the Big 10, it's good for the championship game voting and its good for Michigan.

that IMO, you're wrong. I won't EVER root for ohio to win. That is unless it benefits Michigan. Also, the only time I'll root for Sparty, is under those same circumstances and when they play ohio. Pretty much the same goes for ND...though they aren't a Big Ten school.

Nope, I want them with a record where a loss in the Game will cost them something. All those wins in the 1990s were made ever more sweet by the fact that they cost OSU undefeated seasons, shots at conference championships, etc. This is made more complicated by the conference championship game, but I want OSU good enough that a win comes with painful costs.

I agree with the record going into the game. I want us both undefeated every year going into the game against tOSU. Then I want to put up 70 on them.

For MSU, the good times where when John L Smith brought them into the game 4-0 or 5-0 against us. Then Carr basically ripped out Smith's heart and showed everyone the blueprint to beat State and they just collapsed for the rest of the season. All through Sept all the State fans were coming out the woodwork and chirping about they'd beat Michigan but by Nov you couldn't find a single State fan in the state of Michigan.

Unrelated to OP but a couple weeks ago I saw an MSU on tRCMB (I know, I know, I shouldn't go there) and they were circlejerking themselves about how they're just like USC in the sense that they will schedule anyone at anytime citing Boise as an example. Then they went on to talk about how UM was too afraid of scheduling Boise as if they had completely forgotten we were playing Alabama this year.

That being said, full credit to Hollis for getting some pretty big time opponents in home and homes. The next few years they play two game series against Oregon, Alabama, Miami, and Boise, and are continuing their ND series. That's far better than what we have lined up.

I can see Northern Illinois beating Iowa but I don't know that it constitutes an upset. NIU is getting top 25 votes while Iowa is not. Still, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Hawkeyes lose Saturday. I do not think Vandy will beat South Carolina. I'm taking SC with the points.

Northern Illinois is replacing their record setting QB, Chandler Harnish along with almost their entire offense save for their two starting wide receivers. Even if Iowa can't field a RB with intact ligaments, they should still be able to get it done with an above average defense.

Wait are you seriously going to the game? Way to rep Team 133 and all, but admittedly this seems strange to me. Considering UM isn't playing, I have to agree you will in fact be the only one repping the maize 'n blue

I'm going with OU over Penn St. And maybe even Toledo over Arizona. On a side note, is anyone else intrigued by the match up between Arkansas St. and Oregon? Even if Gus Malzhan's team gets blown out of the water, I think it will be interesting to see what kind of team he fields against the ducks.

What do people think about the potential for SMU to upset Baylor on Sunday? SMU doesn't have a frightening defense, but they have a decent running game that might give Baylor some trouble. Baylor has Nick Florence, who has looked serviceable in the few games I've seen where he took snaps, but if Baylor rolls out the sort of defense they displayed in the Alamo Bowl, this one might be morbidly interesting.